More Kokoda secrets

More than 60 years after becoming the site of Australian legends, the Kokoda Track is still revealing its secrets.

Less than a month after the rediscovery of the “Golden Staircase”, the scene of the last stand between exhausted Australian soldiers and the Japanese, the 96km track has offered up another discovery.

The body of a Japanese soldier, complete with uniform, helmet and diary reverently buried close to 66 years ago, has been found by Sunshine Coast Kokoda Spirit tour operator Wayne Wetherall during a recent research and training trip to the sacred site.

It’s believed it is the first time in 30 years that a complete skeleton has been uncovered on the track.

“We believe there are at least another three full skeletons there, just based on the number of boots and leg bones we found,” Wayne said. “Because we have such great relationships with the landowners, they did hint to us that some remains had been buried in that particular area. When we started digging, we uncovered a boot with the remains of toe bones in it.

“We began to excavate and found the rest of the body, the skull, his diary and helmet. He still had dogtags. He was buried quite deep, they had taken great care when they buried it.

“We reburied everything as we found it. I would say he has been underground for 66 years and probably died in 1942 during the Japanese forward advance. His helmet is in good condition, the dogtags were readable and the diary was in one piece, but we didn’t want to look too much, we didn’t want to disturb the body more than we had to.”

Wayne and his companions immediately placed phone calls to the Australian High Commission and Japanese Embassy alerting them to the discovery.

Eventually, Japan will send a team to recover the bodies and a ceremony will be held, before the remains are returned to Tokyo.

Wayne said the body was found in a “reasonably popular site”, near the Mount Bellamy, Templeton’s Crossing area.

“It was just off the main track that we found the remains, so I suppose it is a bit surprising that they have remained undiscovered for so long,” he said. “But they had been buried very deep and were quite reverently placed there. Not with the usual haste of a war burial, which often meant bodies could not be buried very deeply.

“So they have been preserved very well under the circumstances.

“And there was a major cyclone last year on the track and some of the water could have disturbed the remains.”

Wayne will return to Papua New Guinea this week to continue his research trip and meet with landowners about opening old and forgotten sections of the Kokoda Track.